Nickelodeon

"JC and I had an early meeting at the convention center, and we walked the show floor before. What we saw opened our sleepy eyes—workers setting up booth after booth for new channels, including HBO, Showtime, ESPN, Nickelodeon, and MTV—more than we had ever seen before and nothing like we had expected. No longer would cable TV be a community antenna service merely bringing in the Big Three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). These companies were coalescing into a completely different business, an unprecedented platform for networks of all kinds: movies, music, news, history, education, food, and so much more. Millions of TV homes in America would want more choice in the channels they watched."

"The reason for the conflict was the way the original agreement had been written, with one critically important paragraph. It stated that all future cable channels owned by either Universal or Paramount were to be equally shared, so when Viacom bought Paramount, Universal took the position that it was entitled to own half of Viacom’s cable networks, which included MTV and Nickelodeon. Sumner Redstone, who controlled Viacom, went bonkers when he heard this extreme claim and countersued Universal, saying *he* ought to own the USA Network. As lawsuits tend to, this one dragged on for some time, and the final settlement gave Universal sole ownership of USA."